SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Commendable
progress in education
made Asia-Pacific
an early achiever
of the MDGs
BOX 3.2:
A bulge in youth
The term ‘youth bulge’ was coined by a German
social scientist, Gunnar Heinsohn, in the
mid-1990s, but has gained greater currency in
recent years. It refers to a significant increase
in the number of adolescents and young adults
as well as a rise in their share of the total population.
Some scholars have described a youth
bulge as occurring when 20 percent or more
of a population is aged 15 to 24. It is also measured
as the ratio of the population aged 15 to
24 to the population aged 15 to 64.
The youth bulge usually occurs about 20 years
after the onset of fertility decline. In Asia-Pacific
as a region, it took place about 30 years ago,
when the share of youth in the total population
reached a peak of 21 percent in 1985. It had
declined to 16 percent in 2015, and is projected
to fall further to 12 percent by 2050.
The timing of the peak in the share of youth in
a population differs widely among Asia-Pacific
countries. In Japan and the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea, the youth bulge
occurred in the 1960s, and in Singapore; Hong
Kong, China (SAR) and the Republic of Korea
in the 1970s. By contrast, in Afghanistan and
Timor-Leste, 33 the shares have not yet reached
their highest levels. Further, even though the
largest share of youth occurred a few decades
back in most Asia-Pacific countries, 21 out 37
countries have yet to achieve the peak in terms
of their numbers of youth.
Source: Omoju and Abraham 2014, Huntington 1996, UN
DESA 2015a.
EDUCATION IS THE PATH
TO THE FUTURE
Education embodies human capabilities and
skills. It is a human right as well as an essential
component of human development and a
thriving economy. Investing in education helps
countries build labour skills, and move towards
producing more sophisticated and economically
rewarding products and services. In the 2015
World We Want survey conducted by the United
Nations for the formulation of the Sustainable
Development Goals, education was ranked as
the number one area for development investment,
not only in Asia-Pacific, but in the world as
whole. 5 More than 8 million people voted for
education as key to a future that is equitable,
sustainable and prosperous. 6
Encouraged by the Millennium Development
Goals, Asia-Pacific countries made
significant progress in strengthening education
systems and getting more children, particularly
girls, to school. In enrolment and gender parity
in primary education, a majority of countries in
the region were early achievers. Progress has been
mixed when it comes to higher levels of education
as well as retention of students, however.
Disparities persist across subregions, and
along the lines of gender, disability and location.
Many children still do not make the transition
from primary to secondary, or from secondary to
tertiary education, leaving them poorly equipped
to negotiate labour markets and lead successful,
productive adult lives. Current education and
training systems have been slow to adapt to
changing demands of increasingly dynamic
economies, complicating the transition of young
people from school to work. Children and youth
need to not only go to school and remain there,
but also to emerge with both the knowledge and
the skills to thrive in today’s world.
This is not an easy process in a region with
1.7 billion people under age 25. Education systems
are under tremendous pressure to expand.
But they need to rise to this challenge in order
to maximize the demographic dividend.
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